I'm looking at reduing/adding to my Lighting and am looking for other peoples thoughts on the matter. (SPS tank)

[AZMSGT]

I'm looking for thoughts from experienced hobbyists and possible alternates.

I have a Red Sea Reefer 625 I'm presently growing acros, monti's and other SPS. The tanks dimensions are 59L x 24D x 24W, I run a lid that has clear screen to keep fish from flying out.

My present lighting is three Ecotech XR30 G4s with defusers. I have the lights running perpendicular to the front glass. My growth is I would say ok but I get allot of shadowing and I want to bring in more light. Originally I was looking at a total of 4ea XR30 G4s. But Ecotech has discontinued the G4s. Also looking back I'm thinking I might be able to do better and get a bigger spread.

So I have been think of several ways to improve lighting. Obviously there are less expensive ways to do things and more expensive ways to do things.

Plan A
Keep the XR30 G4s rotate them to be Parallel to the front glass and add a 61" T-5 hybrid fixture.
Pro, Would provide a spread of light bigger than what I have now. Least expensive to implement.
Con, This would give me allot of strong LED light down the middle and could cause Acros to want to grow toward the brighter LEDs. Of course I can tune down the LEDs but I have seen others have trouble with the Acros growing towards LEDs.

Plan B
Switch to 4 XR15 G5 and run a hybrid T-5 Fixture.
Pro similar to above, I can sell my XR30s and recoup money spent. The new G5s seem to offer a better spread of light.
Con G5s are untested in most configurations. G5s are not super stable.

Plan C
Go with 8 XR15 G5 lights. They would get mounted to a custom frame that would spread them over the tank evenly in a grid.
Pro, all controllable via App. Light spread should be very even
Con, Same as Plan B and most expensive

Picture to show what I have. The center light is now turned the same as the to side lights.

 

[Crustaceon]

Plan A is your best bet IMO. You can’t beat t5 when it comes to coverage.

 

[Topreefer92]

I would personally go with plan A for now. People are having issues with the G5s and such, would hate for you to potentially be one of those. As mentioned above the t5s are amazing for spread. Plus it will eliminate even more disco effect.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Hey Ken, you can do plan A and still keep the Radions perpendicular to the front as there are 24" end plates available for the Aquatic Life hybrid fixtures. That's what I do on my frag tanks, and I get very even coverage in those.

 

[Bpb]

B would be the cheapest if you’re able to recoup the cost of your g4 units.

C would actually be my favorite option from an even blanket of light standpoint. But would be complicated and annoying to install

 

[HB AL]

A bunch of Kessils work great on my tank, just another option. None of my corals complain.

 

[AZMSGT]

Hey Ken, you can do plan A and still keep the Radions perpendicular to the front as there are 24" end plates available for the Aquatic Life hybrid fixtures. That's what I do on my frag tanks, and I get very even coverage in those.

I was considering that option but with the cover edge protruding into the tank 2” on each side I thought maybe the blanket of light would not get full coverage into the tank. Then I would end up with allot of edge spill out.

 

[KimG]

Not sure if you are looking for option D, but you could add led bars. Orphek, GHL and others produced them.
Should give you the extra coverage.

 

[Nathan Milender]

I am no expert. When I tried to answer the same question it became clear that the answer is difficult. The only consistent answer I got was that the T5 are fool proof just not as pretty. I use T5 with ai primes on a 6 ft 125 gallon and they do well. There are hot spots right under the leds but the rest of tank seems pretty even. In the high intensity areas I have a pavona and psamacoral doing well. The others are mostly acans, euphellyia, chyphastrea, a Duncan, and a pipe coral. I tried a gonipora early on in this tank that never did well and I recently lost a stylophora and a pocilipora which had more to do with a flow change, they both grew well under these lights. Even in the bottom of the tank a candy cane and some of the chypastrea have bleached when placed early on and later recovered. The only think I wonder about with the T5s is when to change them. Without a Par meter I do not really know when they are going so I instead plan on 18 months.

 

[bobnicaragua]

Another vote for plan A. You'll need to turn down your LEDs anyway when adding T5s. I would expect more even coverage, not hot spots.

 

[X-37B]

I vote for plan A.
Use what you have.
Turn the 2 on the end so its the same as the middle.
Add 2 T5's front and back.
No shadowing an you can adjust the look with different bulbs.

 

[AZMSGT]

Not sure if you are looking for option D, but you could add led bars. Orphek, GHL and others produced them.
Should give you the extra coverage.

I was thinking about those as a possibility. But also unsure of how effective they really would be Compared to the T5s.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I say Plan A or Plan E get a 4th gen4 xr30.

 

[RCS82]

I was going to mention a plan E and just buy another gen4, maybe I'm wrong but I thought there would be a fair amount of them on the used market.